


Waking Up

by IceDevice



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, One Shot, Other, Short One Shot, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-20 22:29:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12443127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceDevice/pseuds/IceDevice
Summary: Silver wakes up into a living nightmare.





	Waking Up

It was the smell of smoke and ash that woke him.

His vision was blurry when he opened his eyes, leading him to try and feel around to orient himself. Immediately, he began to cough, feeling something like dust hit his throat when he inhaled. He also felt something wet on his face. Struggling to make his body move, Silver brought a hand to his face, trying to wipe away whatever was blurring his vision, but nothing came away. His vision returned without issue after a few seconds anyway, and he gazed out.

He seemed to be laying on his side, staring at a pile of rubble which had once been a building laying strewn across the street. His body felt weak as he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position, dragging his legs out from under a pile of broken bricks and wood. As he took in his surroundings, the awful realization hit him of where he was, and his last memories tore at him. Deliora. Chaos. Isvan being destroyed.

Hurrying into a standing position, Silver continued to cough as he looked around. The last thing he had been doing was fleeing the demon's rampage with his family, one hand in his wife's and the other carrying his son. 

_Gray. Mika._

Staggering forward, Silver looked around, ignoring the stiffness and sharp pains in his neck. All around him, all he could see were smashed houses and wrecked streets, a church spire sticking out of the ground at an angle a mile away from the rest of itself, an entire line of annihilated concrete that looked as though it'd been smelted and fused. The sky still held tinges of the angry, death-like red that had occupied it during the evacuation, but had given way to the calm deep blue of night. Smoke was still in the air, arising from fires that hadn't yet put out. Most unnerving of all was the sheer _silence_. Every sign of Deliora's presence was still there, but he found no shadow of the beast itself. 

"Gray?! Mika?!" he called out, voice hoarse. There was no answer. 

" _GRAAAY!! MIKAAA!!_ " he tried again, hearing nothing back.

Silver began to run. He ran aimlessly, only looking for some sign of his wife and child, or any sign of life at all. He ran down the destroyed streets and climbed over more mounds of rubble. There was no one else around. He was surrounded by death and destruction, but there was no death. No signs of any bodies showed themselves to him. Not even a leg or a hand peeking out from under strewn boards. He ran until he vaguely felt like he was out of breath, and doubled back to try to return to the street where he had woken up, sure that maybe he had missed something.

It was like there was a glitch in the world. His hometown was in a state of disaster, but everyone inside it had vanished. The memories, only a few hours old at most, were filled with the sounds of destruction and the screams of the evacuees as they fled the rampaging beast called Deliora. How much he wanted to see the bodies of his friends and family, he wasn't sure. What was worse, being the only one alive in a town full of corpses, or being the only one left at all? Had Deliora eaten them and then moved on? Was he in some sort of waking nightmare, alone with the entire world absent as well?

" _GRAAAAAY!!!_ " he called out, voice cracking and tears threatening his eyes. " _MIIIKAAAAAA!!!_ "

Silver continued jogging, feeling soreness in his legs held back by numbness. The pain of his wounds, which must have been severe, did not seem to bother him like they should have. Despite the advantage, perhaps brought on by adrenaline, his own footsteps were all he ever heard filling the silence that followed his calls. His family was not answering, and no one was. Still, he did not give in. Not yet. He would search Isvan in its entirety, and if he failed to find them here, he'd search the entire world. Using conviction to desperately stave off despair, he continued his scouring of the ruins of his home town. 

It could've been an hour, two hours, or a day. He never saw any change in the sky, nor any disturbance in the streets. At some point, however, he came across something that caught his eye. Having wandered near Isvana's outskirts, he saw something past the smoke that was drifting up from a destroyed house. It was distant, and he couldn't be sure exactly what it was, but it was different, so it was worth investigation. Several peg-like silhouettes stuck out from the copious gray smoke.

As he walked closer, he saw that he was right to think that these silhouettes were humanoid. He began staggering towards them, breaking into a jog, then a sprint. From what he could see as he neared, several figures were standing around a taller central one. As he drew nearer, he could see several turn to face him, and his sprint slowed down. Something was wrong.

By the time he was close enough to see the faces, he had slowed to a walk, and found in himself an incredible urge to sprint back in the other direction. 

All of them were corpses. The circle of people, standing around their robed leader, were bloody bodies, many of them rotting. Almost all of them were missing limbs or sporting grievous injuries, and as they turned to face him, he saw that some were missing one or both eyes. Terror flooded Silver's body. One of the party was Mrs. Lilleman, his neighbor, missing the lower half of her jaw and part of her scalp. Another was a pastor from the local church, a chunk torn out of his abdomen with slivers of wood sticking out. Silver backed away, nearly tripping over a piece of cement. None of the bodies had made a move. He counted seven or eight of them. None were Mika or Gray.

"S͏il҉ver͟."

He felt a chill as his name was called. The speaker seemed to be the tall berobed man, and his voice rattled and echoed. Silver could see an elaborate headdress on his head, and between it and the high collar, he could not make out any features, as the man wasn't facing his way. There was a khakkhara in his hand. Around him, Silver could see markings along the ground in the shape of a circle, in black paint, with candles placed in specific points. He did not want to answer. He wished very much that he'd never come here, that the area had remained a ghost town, that he had been alone much longer. What was this? What was going on? Black magic? Demon-worshiping?

"S҉il͢v҉e͘r̷ Ful̡l͢bust̵er?͡"

Despite his fear, he had doubts that he could simply escape, and it seemed the leader was intent on speaking to him. Silver's eyes flashed from one face to the next, to the man's back, and inbetween. He attempted, and failed, to swallow his fear as he tried to answer, thinking that no matter what, this was an opportunity to find out what had happened to his loved ones. But now, he feared finding out.

"W-Who a...Who are y-you?!" he tried, not achieving the authoritative tone he had hoped for. Was he the next to be zombified? It was him, a regular human, being addressed by a weird dark priest and a group of undead corpses. 

"I͞ ͢a͝m K͟ȩy͡e̡s͠.͞"

"Where are Gray and Mika?!" he demanded, a little more power seeping into his voice.

"T̛h҉ey̴ are͏ ̨not heŗe.̕"

Ice flooded his body again, and he tried to hold back more despair. _Not here? Not here? What does that mean?_ Gone? Dead? Dead and unrevived, unlike this small gathering of people he'd known and acquainted himself with before Deliora arrived?

"What happened to them?! What are you doing here?!" More emotion filled him, and his voice rose to a half-yell, though it was not out of confidence.

"It i̧s͜ ͏abo̶ut t̨im̶e y͘ou͡ ̢ar͜r͘iv͜e̛d.҉ ͞I ̨w͜as͞ almo͘st ̕read҉y ̕t̴o̡ abando͝n ͏th̸e ex͏p̴eri̵m͝ȩn͟t̡."

When the massive demon had approached Isvana and began attacking, Silver's brain had worked at high speed, making calculations and decisions in instants for the sake of keeping himself and his loved ones safe from the disaster. Now it seemed with each passing moment, and each passing word, more of Silver's stable mind declined, leaving a terrible mix of fear, desperation, anxiety, and nausea in its wake, and leaving him with questions he didn't want answered and a lump in his throat.

"E-Experiment?" Was that what these bodies were, standing around like guards or overseers? Resurrecting the dead was an experiment? "What are you talking about?"

"I̵ a̸m͟ ͏the̕ B͟la͜ck A͠r͏c̶hbishop,͘ a͘nd ̡I̷ ͟gi͡v̸e r͞is͘e ͜t̵ǫ ̡t͜he de̡a̷d̶." the one calling himself Keyes answered. "Bu͠t ̧my wor͡k i͢s͝ i̷mp͞er͢f̷e͏c̵t.͝ I̛ ̧am ͟dr͏i͞v̕eņ ͡t̛o͢ restore͠ ͟l̛i͟fe into ͘a͠n emp͡ty̨ c҉a͞d̶aver̷.̵ An͡d s̨ơ ͜I ̵e͝xpe͡ri̧m͝en̴t."

Keyes turned around. Looking upon his face, Silver felt sick. Though almost entirely covered by the gilded headpiece, what little of his face was visible showed that he didn't have one. There was only a skull, empty of eye sockets, with stitches running through the lower and upper jaws to bind them together.

Was Silver caught in some sort of sick movie? Or just a nightmare? He wanted to wake up now. He wanted to feel the sun on his face as he lazily stretched an arm over his loving wife. He wanted to be in a place where he was not surrounded by zombies and a skeleton priest. And now he was being told that the townsfolk, people he knew, _his friends_ , were being used in twisted necromancy experiments and having their corpses disturbed and controlled. His friends were being used like post-mortem puppets. The urge to vomit increased.

"You're--you're using my--you...?"

"Y̵ou̴r̴̕ ̡b̵͝o͠ḑ̛y̕͟,̷ y̷͝ȩs͢͠͝.̕͝"

Silver stopped dead in the middle of his sentence. That....what? That wasn't what he'd been about to-- _what?_ His mouth dropped open and he took a step back. Was that a threat?

"I͢ ͏c҉a͜n ͜se͡e͡ you҉'͞re ̸sh̛ock͢ed.҉ Do ̸you͟ not bel̷i͏ev̢e m̨e? ͠H̴e͞re͘, ͘t͞ake͟ a ͘look͘."

Keyes stepped to the side, revealing something behind him, and a high-pitched whistle filled Silver's ears. He felt dizzy as he looked at what was laying within the Satanistic circle, surrounded by candles. Silver dropped to his knees and heaved, though nothing came up. Looking down at the ground while he retched spared him a prolonged look at what was there, though like a magnet, his eyes were drawn back despite never wanting to see it again.

Inside the circle was himself. His own body, laying straight, positioned so that his arms and legs pointed straight outward as though on a cross. It was wearing the same shirt he was wearing now, though ripped and shredded, and it was soaked in red. The blood stain running down its forehead matched the one Silver could feel on his own face, and as he saw, it ran not from a gash, but a severe wound, almost like a wide crack in his skull, giving it a misshapen look that did not match how Silver remembered his own face. Its skin, much paler than his own, was spotted with large blotches of blue and purple. Its eyes were open and staring upward into the sky.

"No...." came his own hoarse whisper.

_No, no, no, no, **no**._ This was not him. He was not dead, and he refused to believe the sight in front of him. Silver stood up, immediately felt like vomiting a second time as his head spun, and backed away as fast as he could. He tripped over something, falling backward and banging his head on the ground, but he did not slow down, getting back up and turning on his heel, then sprinting as fast as he could.

"The ͡bo͠dy yơu ar̶e͟ in̕ ͜no҉w ͠i̴s ̛y̢ou͠r ҉ethe͡rn̡an̛o ̛b̷o͡d͏y." came the sorceror's voice, and he could still hear it in his ear as though it were right next to him, running alongside him. Ice ran down his spine. "It͠ ̷c̵o͞n̸tain͝s ͜y̨oųr͜ ̧interna͘l ͘m͜a̡gic, al̢o̡ng͠ ̕wit̛h̵ y͟o̷ur soul.̸"

"SHUT UP!" Silver begged, slamming his hands over his own ears as he ran, though still the voice encroached.

"Fǫr the f͘irst ͠ti̢m͢e̷, it͏ has n͠ot ̵di̵s͞sipated͡, no͘r lef͟t tḩę Ear̢th͜, un͠p̴r͢e͡c̸e͡nde̵nţe̢d ̶i͏n̴ m͡y ͡year̷s of neçromancy.̷.̛..a̛ t̨h̕r̶ilļin͏g̴ success!͞"

Before he could scream for the voice to stop again, he felt a tug, a yank from behind. His body stopped mid-motion, and he felt himself suspended in the air as though on puppet strings. Terrified, he then felt himself fly backward at high speed, until he fell backwards onto the ground and all went black.

Though his vision was gone, his feeling was not. In fact, it had magnified tenfold. The numbness was gone, and suddenly he could feel the full force of all that he had endured since Deliora's attack. His head wound stung, ached, and burned all at once. His body felt stiff and sore, and innumerable small scrapes and gashes that littered his body brought themselves to his attention. His leg throbbed with pain, and Silver was sure that it must have been broken. In his other leg, the soreness from so much sprinting also presented itself.

"Y̡ou͞ a̧r̵e҉ ҉beho͜l͠d͜e̕n̢ to̢ me̸." 

That terrible, rattling voice came again, and he felt the darkness fade away. His open eyes saw the dark blue sky above him before they picked up everything else. In a circle, he saw the faces of the group of zombies staring down at him. Tears stung at his eyes and he felt them running down the sides of his face. Against his will, he found himself sitting up, and pulling himself to his feet. This could not be reality, reality had to be kinder than this. His wife and child could not be dead, he could not be a walking corpse, this could not be happening--

"Y̴ou̸, ̴o̷nc͜e͡ ̡d͝ȩad̛ ͜a͏nd n̨ǫw ͡alive,҉ o̧we ̢yo̢ur l͢if͘ę to ͜m͟e̡.̶ In̵ ̷ex̧c̷hange f͏or ̸m̴y͘ cha̡ri͏t͞y,̛ y̧o̸u ͟w̕ill ̢se͜r͢ve̴ m̷e."

Dead though he was, he wished he were lifeless. He'd realized that he wasn't in a movie or experiencing a nightmare. He'd simply fallen into Hell.

"Fol͝lo҉w m͜e҉, S͢il͞ver F̕u̴l͠lb͞uster."


End file.
